Health Alert: Over-medicated America?

“Drug makers flatly deny they’re pushing pills for profit. Doctor Paul Antony of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America says, ‘For many people we are not prescribing enough medicines. There’s actually a problem with underutilization for very important diseases like diabetes and hypertension.'”

That last statement is true. However with the recent push of “lifestyle” medications like Viagra and Ambien, the line between what patients need and what they want become increasingly blurred. More advertising dollars should be spent on the use of ace-inhibitors and angiotensin-receptor blockers in hypertensive diabetics, or beta-blockers and statins in coronary artery disease, for instance. These medicines save lives – Ambien doesn’t.